Alien Rain
Reviews Summary C+VG Issue 1 The arcade game Galaxians has now found its way on to many machines but the US Apple version called Alien Rain takes a lot of beating. Both the waves of bat-like Martians and the space ship under your control move across the screen very quickly with the block of alien creatures reforming and swooping into a fresh formation ready to attack with alarming speed. Using the right and left directional cursor control key to move the defending ship you have to niftily change direction to avoid the spray of missiles fired by the invading force. Of the four-deep block in the deadly enemy fleet there are three different types to blast with your laser gun. Each type of creature is worth a number of points ranging from 30 through to 50 and sometimes going up to 300. At the start of the game you get three lives, or ships, to play with. When those three are blown up the game is over. Often it doesn't take long for all three to be exterminated which is frustrating but, of course, addictive. To fire at the galactic warriors use the A key. The best tactics to adopt are to belt out a continual onslaught of shots while at the same time moving the defence ship to pick off the galaxians working your way from one side of the block to the other. You must keep moving all the time otherwise kamikaze type aliens will bomb you in no time. At first it seems easy while the invading ships are sent individually to begin with and later in pairs swooping down leaving in its wake a shower of missiles. When these start flying across the screen the pace hots up and you have to fire at the alien while trying to dodge both his shots and the space ship. The biggest scorers are the topmost galaxian (red if you have colour). One of those shot down during a swooping dive rakes in 100 points. When it doubles up with one or two of the smaller ships so that they attack in for mation it is worth 200 points. Don't let them fly too low before you fire at them because below a certain level your guns are deactivated. Don't let these fool you into a false sense of security with their special computerised tracking device feature which makes them home in on your ship. Yet they wait for a few seconds before they attack. The magic number of 3,000 is reckoned to be a high score and when you reach that you get a bonus ship to add to your fleet. But so fast moving is the game that it is hard to achieve that figure without a lot of practice to perfect your firing and movement co-ordination. The graphics and sound effects have that air of US professionalism. In America Alien Rain has recently been hailed as the country's most popular Apple game since Space Invaders took to the screen. Over here it is obtainable from Pete and Pam Computers of Rosendale, Lancashire and costs £13.95 and runs on 48K. Category:Apple II Games Category:C+VG Reviews Category:Broderbund Software